


Blue and White

by slowHistorian



Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-15
Updated: 2011-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-27 09:31:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 13,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slowHistorian/pseuds/slowHistorian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The trope goes like this: story ends with “and then he woke up and it had all been a dream.” Only, for Noah Puckerman, it was just the beginning for him, and now he had to deal with the fact that his happily ever after had been a drug-induced, coma dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

“Merry Christmas, baby,” Puck whispered to his boyfriend as he slipped into the other boy’s bed.  


Kurt rolled over and curled around Puck, huffing at the cold still clinging to his clothes. “You don’t even celebrate Christmas, Noah.” He replied. “And how did you get in here?”  


“Climbed the wall,” Puck said, kissing Kurt softly. “And it doesn’t matter if I celebrate it or not, you celebrate it. We did Hanukkah last week. Just think. In one year, we’ll be in an apartment in New York City, decorating our tiny spot in the world in silver and blue and red and green, and meshing both holidays together.”  


“Sounds nice,” Kurt murmured, sleepily.  


“It’s only 5:30, baby. Go back to sleep. Knowing Finn, he’ll be up in an hour or two and jumping on your bed shouting about presents. I’ll be right here,” Puck tucked the blankets around them, pulled Kurt closer and closed his eyes. “Love you.”  


“Love you, too.”  


Puck smiled as Kurt fell back asleep in his arms. Despite everything that had gone wrong in his life, this one piece, this one person, made up for all of it. Kurt’s love and forgiveness was everything he wanted and more. Puck could easily imagine spending the rest of his life with the smaller boy. If Burt didn’t kill him for sneaking in like this, anyway. But way Puck figured it, Christmas was all about love and forgiveness. Peace on Earth (in the Hummel-Hudson home at least) and goodwill for men and all that shit, so Burt wouldn’t be too mad.  


Abandoning his thoughts for now, Puck allowed the warmth of Kurt and the soft bed to pull him back to sleep.  


\--  


A slow, insistent beeping tugged at the edge of Puck’s awareness, dragging him from his slumber. His body felt cold, and heavy, and there was an odd taste in his mouth. It certainly didn’t feel anything like curling around Kurt in Kurt’s bed. A TV played softly in the background, an episode of some sort of crime drama, given the tones of the actors’ voices, and the bleak background music. Puck struggled to open his eyes.  


He was in a hospital, though he couldn’t figure out how he’d gotten there. The room wasn’t so much a room as a curtained off area, next to a window. Bright sunshine filtered in past the blinds on the window to his right, and to his left: soft pink pastel curtains that separated him from the area beyond. Other then the TV up on the wall opposite his bed, the room was barren, only a few purple flowers in a vase next to his head to brighten it.  


His head ached, and he was confused, and he was starting to freak out. The heart monitor next to him began to beep faster as he fought to breath past the tightness in his chest. The curtain pulled back suddenly, and a red-haired nurse in Snoopy-decorated scrubs walked over to his bed.  


“Hey, there, sleepy head,” she said cheerfully. She adjusted something on the machinery to his left, and smiled at him. “Welcome back to the land of the living. How are you feeling? Does anything specifically hurt, or just an over all, been-asleep-too-long ache?”  


Puck attempted to get his mouth, throat and voice to all work in unison. The tube supplying oxygen to his nose tickled, and he struggled to get his arm up to poke at, but only succeeded in smacking himself in the face. He looked at the nurse.  


“Asleep?” he asked as he finally got his voice to work.  


“Yep! You’ve been unconscious for the last 6 weeks. Your body’s going to be a bit slow for the next few hours, while your brain catches up with the fact you’re awake, and a doctor will be by in a little bit to explain your injuries and the after effects of the coma.” She checked on the readouts from the machines, not seeming to care that she’d just tilted Puck’s world on its axis.  


“Coma?” he managed, past a dehydrated throat. Then he started to panic again. “Christmas?”  


The nurse laughed lightly. “Not that long, silly. Only a month and a half. It’s the middle of November, you’re still in time for Christmas.”  


She wandered out after that, and Puck struggled to come to terms with what he’d just learned. He’d gone to sleep next to his boyfriend on Christmas morning, but the nurse said it was only the middle of November. That wasn’t just a month and a half. That was almost a year! He didn’t understand what was going on.  


He turned his attention back to the TV as the drama ended and a news program came on. He listened as the anchorwoman said in a clear, high voice that the date was ‘November 17th, 2010’.  


November 2010. A full year (and a month) BEFORE he went to sleep in Kurt’s bed that morning.


	2. Day 0

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: I meant for this to be a depressing, non-holiday related, non-Happily Ever After story, but I had Christmas carols stuck in my head and there’s a Christmas tree on the conference table, and it went in a wholly Christmas way. Happy holidays! I might still right the unhappy one, but it’ll have to wait until after the holidays.

\--Day 0--

Puck had felt disconnected from reality since waking up. Finding out his relationship with Kurt had only been a dream was like a punch to the stomach and he still hadn’t caught his breath. He’d been happy, in his dream world; a future senior year where everything was going right. In the dream, he’d spent a month and a half in juvie, and Kurt had gone off to a prep school called ‘Dalton’, but all that had seemed to get him his best friend back, plus a family, and a lover. In the dream, he’d finally been forgiven for the baby-gate scandal, and he had a relationship with Beth’s adopted mother Shelby who’d agreed to an open adoption. He was relied on, loved, and trusted in the dream.  


Here in the real world, though-here, Finn still stared blankly when he approached, glaring slightly, and Quinn sneered while Santana snickered and Kurt ran away with trepidation and distrust in his eyes. Beth had been adopted in a closed adoption to a family in Cincinnati, and was beyond his reach. He’d been part of a family in his dream world: the glee kids against the world. It was still the glee family against the world in reality, but he wasn’t a part of it. He was the creepy uncle that no one wanted around, and everyone figured if you just ignored him, he’d go away eventually.  


Some days, he felt like he was drowning in life. The people around him didn’t notice him all that often, and when they did, the results weren’t pleasant. He stayed away from his house, from the sneers and derision of his mother (he was 99% certain she wished he’d actually died in the accident), and the blank stares of his little sister. He didn’t go to the choir room when he skipped classes anymore; the gleeks didn’t want him around, so he didn’t bother. He took to spending time on the roof of the school, wishing he was still in the coma.  


Christmas was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Mr. Schue had been so enthusiastic about his project: an anonymous Secret Santa project, where they all drew names from a hat, bought the person a gift, then left the gift with a ‘To’ but no ‘From’ Secretly in the choir room. Other than that, the rules were that you couldn’t tell, at all, you couldn’t draw yourself, you couldn’t draw the person you were currently dating, and you couldn’t spent more than $30. It was supposed to bring them even more together as a group or some bullshit like that.  


Puck watched from his customary spot up on the top row tucked in a corner, as the other gleeks went up, drew a name and sat down either giggling already or looking pensive. One by one they retrieved their names, until only Puck was left. He slipped around the gossiping, happy group of kids, and scooped out the last name in the hat. Once he returned to his seat, he opened up the tiny slip of paper to see who he had to be nice to this week.  


 _Puck._   


For a second, the world fell silent around him. He stared down at the paper, wondering why he was the butt of the universe’s grand joke. He debated briefly raising his hand, telling Mr. Schue he pulled his own name. Then sound started back up again, and he looked around at the others: smiling, happy, already planning. He would have to trade with one of them, ruin their plans. He’d know who got him, who had to suffer through getting him a present. He crumpled the small paper in his fist, hiding its mocking Secret from sight.  


Puck barely noticed Mr. Schue wrapping up the meeting, or the other kids dispersing. He was too busy making mental plans to skip math tomorrow morning, maybe skip gym too, hell probably just skip the whole day. He was definitely going to skip the glee holiday party next week. With only Kurt and Finn left in the room, Puck got up from his chair and left as silently as he’d come, dropping the name slip in the trashcan as he passed it. Then he headed for the roof.  


\--  


Kurt paused in his conversation with Finn as Puck walked out of the choir room. He watched the other boy drop something in the trashcan and his curiosity was piqued.  


Puck had been different since coming back from juvie. The first day after he’d returned to school, he’d leered at Kurt and called him ‘babe’. It had freaked Kurt out so bad he’d practically run from the room. And he didn’t know what Finn and Puck had talked about, but by the end of the week, Puck had hardly talked to anyone at all. He attended glee club after school most days, but sat silently in the back unless they were singing as a group. The first few times Mr. Schue had them perform individual assignments, Puck had had to remind Mr. Schuester that he hadn’t gone yet. After the third time, Puck quit speaking up. Kurt doubted Mr. Schue even realized that Puck had started skipping the last day of small assignments, and that he hadn’t performed in an individual assignment in weeks.  


Sometimes, Puck paused in the hallways and just let the students rush around him. At those times, he seemed almost confused at how he’d gotten to where he was. Something was going on, something he wasn’t talking about. He could call Kurt ‘babe’ or ‘princess’ or ‘fairy’ or whatever all he wanted if it helped him recover from this fugue state he seemed to be stuck in.  


He walked over to the trashcan and retrieved what Puck had tossed as he walked out. It was the name from the Secret Santa draw. Kurt knew they were supposed to stay anonymous, Mr. Schue had been adamant about that, but Puck had tossed it for a reason.  


Somehow, the fact that Puck had pulled his own name and didn’t say anything about it didn’t surprise Kurt. It went along with everything else that had seemed to be going wrong recently for the other boy. Finn walked up behind him, and Kurt curled his hand around the slip. He would talk to Finn about Puck later, but didn’t want to share this, not yet.  


“Dude, Hanukkah starts tomorrow, and I still don’t have a gift for Rachel, let alone 8 of them and now I have to get-.” Finn complained.  


“Don’t tell me! It’s supposed to be anonymous, remember? Also, don’t call me dude. Or ‘Bro’,” Kurt cautioned at Finn opened his mouth.  


They left the choir room, Kurt’s mind abuzz with ideas. Hanukkah started tomorrow, and Puck was breaking apart in front of them. Kurt need to find a way he could make this a better Hanukkah for Puck, and let him know someone DID see him.


	3. Day 1

\--Day 1--

Puck’s day was going down the shitter so far. It was the first day of Hanukkah, his mom had plans to work late, and his little sister was going to spend the night and following weekend with their Nana in Dayton. He didn’t begrudge Hannah the chance to get out from under their mother’s thumb, and he’d put her first 3 Hanukkah presents in the bag she’d packed and left by the front door that morning. He didn’t think she’d wait the full three nights, but it was the thought that counted, right?

He’d gotten in late the night before, trying to stay away from home as long as possible, and his mom’s new campaign of “let’s pretend Noah doesn’t exist!” meant that she didn’t bother to wake him when he overslept his alarm by an hour.

He really hadn’t intended to skip his first period class; he liked Chemistry. It had a lot of math, which came easy for him, and he could light shit on fire and not get in trouble for it. Math and History hadn’t been any better. Now it was lunch, the halls filled with students and all he wanted was to find a quiet spot for a few minutes and just chill.

The injuries he’d sustained in October, followed by the prolonged period of unconsciousness, meant that his doctor had forbidden him from trying out for sports for the rest of Junior year. She’d told him that the last thing he needed was to hit his head again. It wasn’t like a TV show, one more crack to his skull would probably permanently brain damage him. No hockey, no baseball, no basketball.

No sports meant that the only thing he sorta had going was glee, for what that was worth. He was Rachel Berry level of unpopular right now. The other jocks left him alone for the most part, targeting everyone else instead. He supposed it was better than being slushied, even if it was cripplingly lonely at times.

He finally got his locker opened, and was just about to shove his algebra book inside when he spied the items stacked on top of his English notebook. A menorah with blue light bulbs, a wrapped blue and white square present, and a card with ‘Puck’ in spiky cursive propped behind it all.

He pushed his algebra book into the bottom part of the locker, and reached in to pick up the menorah. It was about a foot long, and with a solid silver metal base and small blue bulbs atop silver “candles”. On the bottom was a panel where 6 AA batteries already sat, and a small white label with the words ‘Twist bulb to light “candle” each night’ written on it. Given that his mom hadn’t even bothered to get their menorah out this year (Puck would go digging for it later, if only for Hannah’s sake), this was probably the closest he’d get to the Hanukkah traditions this year.

It was honestly the most touching gift Puck had ever gotten. His hand shook, and terrified he was going to drop it, he placed the menorah back in his locker. It fit perfectly across the width of the locker, and if he adjusted some of his books, he’d be able to leave it there, and turn it on every morning when he got to school. As he settled it into the spot he wanted, he pulled out the gift and the card.

The present was square, and a bit heavy. Though curious, he was more interested in the card; the present wasn’t going anywhere. He set it down in front of the menorah and turned his attention to the small white envelope.

The card inside was tastefully decorated; a silver snowflake on a plain white backdrop. Inside, the typed message read ‘May your days be merry and bright!’. In handwriting underneath, his gift-giver had written in that same spiky handwriting, “Happy Hanukkah! You can trade with me “ and a smiley face as the signature. There was one of the small slips from the Secret Santa from the day before, with Artie’s name on it.

Puck turned and looked around the hallway, but didn’t see any of the gleeks. The only people doing the Secret Santa exchange were the glee club members, so his Secret gifter had to be one of them. Someone who’d seen him yesterday, had somehow managed to find out that he’d pulled his own name and was trying to make it right.

Or maybe not. Maybe Artie would end up getting two gifts and he’d get nothing and this was just a cruel prank to make up for all the shit he’d put the gleeks through for the last few years. None of the other glee kids could care if he lived or died; they wouldn’t care what name he drew for the Secret Santa. But then again, they didn’t care enough about him to pull this elaborate a prank, either.

Realizing his thoughts were going in circles, Puck shoved the card back into the envelope, dropped it on top of the still wrapped present, and slammed his locker shut. He needed to get outside, to breathe, right now. Badasses didn’t lose their shit in the middle of the hallway for no reason, after all.

\--

Kurt slipped out from around the corner after Puck had taken off. He had barely missed being seen when Puck had looked around after opening the card.

Okay, so day 1 was a bit of a bust. Puck had seemed to like the menorah, which was good. Kurt had skipped his last two class periods yesterday to drive down to the Judaica store in Dayton and pick it up without anyone knowing. Puck had just stared at it for a few minutes before placing it carefully back in the locker.

He wondered what about the card had upset the other boy. He was serious about trading with Puck. Nothing Puck had done in the last year since joining Glee was worth the sort of ostracization of being his own Secret Santa. While coming up with his plan, Kurt had realized that Puck wasn’t going to attend the end of 2010 holiday party with them if that happened. Super-Secret or not, his ego wouldn’t have allowed it.

Kurt shouldered his bag, and headed off to the cafeteria to meet with Mercedes. He had a full weekend of stalking Puck ahead of him. Might as well give the other boy a break for now.

\--

The last stragglers at the school filtered out, rushing home for the weekend as Puck stared at his closed locker. Before lunch, he would have assumed he knew what was inside when he opened it. Now, he wasn’t so sure. Maybe the gift and the card and the menorah would be gone.

Or maybe…they weren’t a joke, and they’d still be sitting there.

Calling himself a hundred different types of pussy, Puck spun the dial of his locker, and opened it.

The three things were still sitting there, just like he’d tossed them earlier. His Secret Santa hadn’t re-broken into his locker. He avoided them, pulling out the books he’d need for homework instead, and once his bag was packed, picked up the card and slid into his bag between his notebooks. Then he picked up the present.

There didn’t look like there was anyone around, waiting to jump from around the corners to laugh at him for getting his hopes up. He pulled open the end of the wrapping paper, then pulled the rest off swiftly.

A Billy Joel CD.

Correction, a ‘Billy Joel Complete Hits 1973-1997’ 4-disc set with book about the artist. Puck had seen the collection before, but whenever he found it available, he hadn’t had the cash on hand, and when he did, he couldn’t find it. Billy Joel was one of Puck’s musical idols, a Jew-by-birth, who rocked the world, and wasn’t exactly the most religiously strict Jews out there.

Puck took a deep breath, though part of him wanted to squeal like a little girl, and carefully wrapped the paper around the case, then left the school. He had several hours of music to listen to.


	4. Day 2

True to form for this month, Renee Puckerman didn’t take out the menorah, or even come home from work before 12:30. Puck spent the time before she got home making himself a relatively kosher dinner (just in honor of the holy days), and working out a song he had stuck in his head on his guitar.

6 months ago, he would have been out and about, wandering town and making a mess of things. Hell, 3 months ago, he might have still been out and about. It’s what he’d been doing before the accident, or so they said.

The police report from his accident said that he’d been going over 90 in a 50 zone, and that he’d hit a pothole. The car he’d been driving, his mom’s old, beater Volvo, had spun out, then hit no less than 3 telephone poles before flipping into a ditch.

The resulting injuries left him with a slower than usual speaking pattern and a quicker trigger on his temper. He had known he was kinda dumb before the accident; afterwards, he struggled to communicate his thoughts, and misspelled on words that used to come easily. In the end, simply not speaking was the easier road to take. His doctor told him that it was a mild form of aphasia, or ‘inability to express himself’. He saw his pipe-dreams of going to college slipping even farther away.

Puck stared up at his ceiling as he debated whether or not it was worth it to get out of bed. If he got up and left, he’d have nothing to do all day but wander the town. If he stayed, just curled up in bed, he’d have to deal with his mother pretending he was invisible. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

In the end, he decided cold and miserable and finding something to amuse him outside of the house was infinitely better than his mother’s absurd emotional neglect. He showered, raided the fridge for last night’s leftovers, and headed out. Out of spite, he decided to swipe the newspaper as he went. The Sudoku puzzle was always good for a few minutes entertainment.

He had a feeling the white grocery bag he spied hanging underneath his mailbox was going to be far more entertaining, however. Inside the bag was a largish box, wrapped in the same paper from the day before. The box wasn’t cold, so it hadn’t been there very long. But there wasn’t anyone parked on the street except the neighborhood cars that were normally there, and his mom’s new VW Bug.

The present in one hand, his guitar case in the other, Puck set off down the street towards downtown. The Lima Bean would be open this early, and he’d be able to sit inside, have a cup of coffee and try to figure out his odd new Secret Santa from there.

\--

The blast of warmth from the Lima Bean Coffee House was a welcome feeling, and Puck sank into one of the cushy chairs with a cup of coffee and a sigh. He eyeballed the box at his feet. Yesterday’s present hadn’t turned out so bad, so he wasn’t as leery to open this one.

Putting his coffee on the small table, he reached down at picked up the present. It was rectangular, and a bit smaller than a football. The wrapping paper was the same as the day before, a simple blue and white striped kind, and the giver was good at wrapping, something Puck had never mastered.

With a shrug, he unwrapped the present. The brown box proclaimed it to be ‘Clocky, Alarm Clock on Wheels’. The clear plastic front showed a chrome-colored alarm clock with white wheels on either side.

“Wow, someone likes you,” a voice at Puck’s side said. He looked over to see one of the baristas standing by the chair looking at his new alarm clock.

“I’ve wanted one of those for forever!” she continued. “You have to test it out!”

Puck flipped the box around. “It says needs 4 AAA batteries.”

The blond barista pouted. “Aww. Well open it up at least!”

He smirked at her, debating which pickup line would work best to get in her pants as he flipped open the top of the box. His Secret Santa had thought out all contingencies, as there was a pack of AAA batteries sitting on top of the small wheeled alarm clock. No longer paying attention to the barista, he pulled out the batteries, then the clock.

The clock had a panel on the bottom, held in place with a screw, and Puck resisted the urge to pout himself. He really did want to try the clock now. It was only 8:30, the Lima Bean was still relatively empty for so early on a Saturday.

“Oh! We have one of those! Hold on real quick!” The barista rushed away. She was back momentarily, a red Phillips screwdriver in one hand.

She handed it over, and Puck opened up the bottom of the clock, installing the batteries, and then secured the panel. He glanced at the clock on the wall, and set the clock. Double checking the directions, he set the alarm to go off in one minute, and set it on the table.

Less than a minute later, it began to let out the most obnoxious beeping noise, then the wheels began to spin, and it fell off the table. Customers and other baristas looked over as the thing rushed off across the floor, bumping into tables and chairs and people’s legs. The beeping made way for other sorts of robot noises, and Puck laughed as he got up to chase it down. The blond made a happy squealing noise and hopped in place, like a little kid.

Puck finally managed to track it down, and turned off the alarm, a grin on his face. He put it on the table next to his coffee, and sat back in his chair. Twice now, he’d been given a pretty awesome present. Part of him wanted to track down his Secret Santa, but the selfish part of him wanted him to wait, and see how it would play out.

A happy tune running through his head, Puck reached over and picked up his guitar case.

“You guys mind I play?” he asked the barista, who’d returned to behind the counter.

“Knock yourself out,” she replied with a smile. “Man, I gotta get me one of those clocks.”

\---

Kurt pulled off his gloves as he entered the Lima Bean behind Mercedes. They were going shopping in Dayton for the Secret Santa project. Well, Mercedes was going shopping for Secret Santa. Kurt needed to buy a Christmas present for Carole, and pick up some books at the Borders there.

Instead of the normal, tinny, cheesy Christmas music being piped over the café’s speakers, the sounds of an acoustic guitar greeted him. He glanced around the shop to see Puck in a corner, strumming out ‘Hark the Harold Angels Sing’. The tip jar that normally sat next to the cash register was on the table off to the right of him, sitting next to a small silver alarm clock. Kurt looked down to see the box and wrapping paper under Puck’s seat, and smiled.

“Is that Puck?” Mercedes said as she caught sight of him, too. “Is he busking? Is that allowed?”

“There isn’t anything that says he can’t,” Kurt replied. “Not in the show choir rule book, and as long as the employees don’t mind, which it looks like they don’t, he’s perfectly fine.” He nudged her towards the counter and away from where she’d been just staring at Puck.

“But why is he singing Christmas carols? He’s not Christian.”

“But everybody around him probably is, and it’s just that time of year, ‘Cedes. Besides, it looks like he’s gotten a fair bit of tips for it. Maybe he’s trying to get the money for his Secret Santa. Come on.”


	5. Day 3

Puck spent all of Saturday morning and a good portion of the afternoon at the Lima Bean, playing his guitar. When he shifted from his own music to Christmas songs, the customers began to sit in chairs near where he was playing.

After about an hour, the blond barista who’d commented on his clock had come over with the tip jar from the cash register. She placed it on a table near his guitar case; over the day, he’d earned about $100 from playing and singing. He stuck to Christmas music, even some of the more common hymns like “We Three Kings” and “The First Noel”. He may not have been Christian, but people weren’t paying him to play Jewish music. And he needed the money to get a gift for Artie.

Now that he had the money, he was up at the crack of dawn, Sunday morning. He’d had to retrieve his new alarm clock from under the bed when it went off at 6 am, but even that made him smile.  
He was headed off to Columbus for the day, a 2 and a half hour bus ride away. It was going to dip a bit into his savings to pay for the $40 ticket, but it wasn’t like he had a lot of other options. And he definitely didn’t want to spend the day in Lima.

There was no present waiting outside his house when he slipped out his front door at 6:50. His Secret Santa probably wasn’t up yet. There were no odd cars on his street either, and he hurried off, eager to get out of the cold.

The bus ride out of town gave him time to think about whom in Glee could be giving him presents. He had 11 people to choose from, 12 if you counted Mr Schue. He immediately disregarded the thought. Mr. Schuester meant well, but was hands down the most oblivious teacher at the school. Other teachers ignored what went on in the halls simply because it was the status quo or they didn’t want to get involved. Mr. Schue flat out didn’t see it. Before he’d joined Glee, he’d taken advantage of this fact; after, he was just embarrassed for the man by it.

Of the students, it wasn’t Artie, because Artie would have said he drew his own name and redrew. It wasn’t Quinn, she was still angry with him, and had a tendency to look right through him when he approached.

The idea of trading names might have been Brittany, but she wouldn’t have started giving him Hanukkah gifts, or a menorah he could keep in his locker. Santana told him after he came back to school from the accident that he was a joke. And what Santana said, Britt followed.

Sam was new to the school, and what he knew, he learned from dating Quinn and befriending the football team. He might have be nice enough to trade, but wouldn’t have wanted to step in any mess by giving Puck presents. One, maybe, for the Secret Santa. But not the entire period of Hanukkah.

Mike might have done, once up on a time when they were still friends. But after Babygate, he had a tendency to stand between his girlfriend and Puck. There wasn’t enough of a relationship there for him to bother buying Puck presents. And Tina, being friends with Kurt, past recipient of Puck-based bullying, and dating Mike, wouldn’t do so either.

Mercedes wouldn’t have even bothered trading names with Puck, ranking him as lower than the shit she scrapped of her shoes. She was firmly in Kurt’s camp, and Kurt was firmly in the hating Puck camp.

Kurt still turned and walked the other way when he saw Puck. The only exception was glee, and in class, he sat between Rachel and Mercedes and didn’t even look at him. Puck wasn’t sure what was worse: being hated by his best friend of 8 years, or thought of as less than nothing by the person he had a crush on. Kurt was like Mercedes; he would probably find the fact Puck pulled his own name funny. He certainly wouldn’t actually buy Puck presents.

Finn still wasn’t talking to him. Like Kurt, he turned and walked away when Puck walked over. Now, Puck didn’t bother walking over. Maybe Hanukkah 2 years ago, Finn might have done something like this. If he had, the gifts would have been gag-gifts however. Not expensive CD sets and amusing toy alarm clocks.

Puck couldn’t remember just what the turning point in his dream-world was that made Finn forgive him. Some days, he wished he could. He wished he knew why dream-Finn liked him again, so maybe he could replicate it in the real world and real-Finn would be his friend again. Instead of glaring at Puck over Rachel when she was going on about something or other.

Rachel was the most likely to be his Secret Santa. She had the knowledge of Hanukkah to know about the menorah, and the gifts, and the colors blue and white instead of red and green. She was nice enough to give him the gifts and had, one upon a time, thought of him as a friend. But between the way he treated her last year, and the fact that she was dating Finn and frenemies with Kurt, she was firmly in the Hudmel camp of Puck-hatred, even if she didn’t actively hate him herself, and wouldn’t upset the status quo by getting him presents, anonymous or not.

Ok, so thinking about which one of his old friends still thought of him as a friend was downright depressing. Puck pulled his hood over his face and sank down in the bus seat, and instead tried to think of reasons why just staying on the bus and never looking back was a bad idea.

\--

Kurt sat in his Navigator, parked across from the Puckerman house like a creepy stalker for 2 hours. He saw Mrs. Puckerman leave, dressed in Khakis and a black polo, probably some sort of work uniform. She hadn’t come back so far, and there had been no other motion from the house. He didn’t know if Puck was home and just still in bed or not. It was 11:30. IF he was going to do this, he needed to go now.

He slipped out and into the freezing cold Ohio air, crossing the street to the house. Finn had made a comment, just after he moved in last year, that Puck came over so often because he was able to get in and out of his house after his mom locked the door. That had to mean that one of the windows was loose or unlocked at all time, and Kurt just had to find it.

Just to be on the safe side, Kurt went to the front door and leaned on the doorbell. He had a story about “wanting to do an all-guy mashup for Mr. Schue” all prepared in case anyone came to the door, but no one answered the bell. After a few minutes, Kurt went around the side of the house.

The open window turned out to be a window into a laundry room that wiggled a bit, and eventually, Kurt was able to push it up. From there, he simply had to find the other boy’s room.

Puck’s room was neater than expected. Or rather, it wasn’t so much neat as it was spartan. Puck had a bed, a desk, a dresser. There was a laundry hamper by the closet, and unlike Finn’s room, it wasn’t strewn with dirty clothes. A small TV sat on top of the dresser, an Xbox 360 plugged into it. Puck’s guitar was still in its case, placed carefully on the far side of the desk, where the papers and books were neatly stacked. There were no band posters, or game posters or sports posters. Honestly, the entire room felt like a guest room with a long term guest living in it.

Spying the full set of Harry Potter books sitting on the top of the desk shelf, Kurt smiled. He placed the day’s present on Puck’s bed, neatly made, and crept quietly down the stairs and back out the window.

\--

Having spent the entire day in Columbus, first at a small store downtown for Artie’s present, then at the mall people-watching, Puck was emotionally, mentally and physically exhausted when he got home that night. He passed by the living room on his way up to his room, and saw his mom and Hannah watching some sort of girly, cartoon movie on the TV. Probably something she got from Nana for Hanukkah.

Once inside his room, he relaxed. His room was his space; nice, neat, clean. Somewhere he could ignore the various things people demanded from him and just be. Only, like the three little bears in that kid’s story, he had that deep-seated feeling that someone had been in his space. Sitting on his bed was a blue and white present. 3 small boxes, stacked atop one another like a little blue pyramid sat in the middle of his comforter.

His thoughts over the course of the day hadn’t endeared him to his Secret Santa, mostly because he couldn’t figure out which one of the gleeks would be an asshole in real life, and nice in private, and it was freaking him out. Curiosity won out in the end, and he tugged on the ribbon holding the 3 boxes together, then opened them individually.

The smallest box held a pale blue, glass dreidel on white paper. Puck pulled it out, and spun it slowly on the top of his desk. It landed on _gimel_.

The middle box had a badass masculine-style necklace. The necklace itself was black leather cord, and the charm was a simple symbol: a circle inside of a triangle, bisected by a vertical line. Puck recognized it immediately.

The third box held a wooden box inside, and when Puck opened it, he understood why he’d gotten more than one present today. The Symbol of the Deathly Hallows necklace went nicely with the replica Horcrux ring he was now holding. He pulled it out of the box and tried it on. It fit his right hand ring finger, but no other, and was a bit unwieldy, so Puck knew he wouldn’t be wearing it around.

He put it back in the display case, and placed all three boxes on his desk. Very few people knew he liked Harry Potter, so his Secret Santa had to be one of his closer ex-friends, or someone who’d done their research. But between how uncharitable he was feeling towards his fellow gleeks, and the fact that someone had been in his room, even if only to place a gift on his bed, Puck didn’t even want to deal with the presents right now.


	6. Day 4

Puck stared at the blue and white box in his locker. He knew his Secret Santa was just being nice, but he was starting to feel like a charity project.

He dreamed about his coma-paradise life the night before, dreamed about a Finn that thought of him as a brother and a Kurt that loved him. Reality sorta sucked after that, and he hadn’t gone back to sleep after waking up at 4 am. Even his fun new alarm clock failed to cheer him up.

He pulled his books from his locker, and shut the door, leaving the present behind.

\--

Kurt frowned as he watched Puck’s reaction this morning. Far from making him happy, he’d actually seemed angry about the present. He’d thought that he was helping…but now he wasn’t so sure. Maybe he hadn’t liked the presents from the night before, and didn’t want to be disappointed today?

“What are you doing?”

Kurt pressed one hand to his chest and shoved down the urge to shriek, startled. He turned around to see Finn behind him, peering around the corner at Puck over his head.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Kurt said, adjusting his hair and walking down the hallway, hoping Finn would just leave it alone.

“It was a simple question. I wasn’t accusing you of anything, not yet anyway. Were you watching Puck?” Finn rushed to catch up with Kurt.

“I might have been. Why?” Kurt had questioned Finn in a roundabout way the previous Thursday about Puck’s likes and dislikes, but hadn’t explained why.

Finn frowned and came around to stop in front of Kurt, forcing the smaller boy to stop too. “You were asking me what kinds of things he liked last week. I thought maybe you got him for the Secret-Santa project, but that wouldn’t explain why you’re watching him now. Cuz I know you went shopping for that already, and we aren’t giving the presents until Friday so what’s with the secret agent act now?”

Kurt sighed and looked around the hallway, slowly filling with kids. Just down the hall was Mr. Brockman’s math classroom. Mr. Brockman had an empty 1st period on Mondays, so he knew no one would be in there. Taking Finn’s wrist, he tugged his brother into the classroom and shut the door.

“Dude,” Finn said. “I was just curious if you, like, had a crush on him or something, that’s all.”

“I don’t,” Kurt replied absently, then paused. “I might. Maybe. Anyway, that’s not the issue. Have you seen Puck lately?”

Finn scrunched up his face in confusion. “We have 3 classes and glee together. Of course I’ve seen him.”

“No, I mean like, really looked at him,” Kurt stressed. “Not just in passing.”

Finn shrugged. “We don’t really talk anymore, so I guess not.”

“He’s-.” Kurt sighed in exasperation as he struggled to come up with the right words. “There’s something wrong with him. It’s like there’s pieces missing. Ever since he came back from juvie, he’s been quiet and withdrawn. He doesn’t talk to anyone, not to mess with them, or make fun of anyone, or to brag. He doesn’t sing unless he has to, and sometimes when I look at him, it’s like he’s not all there.”

Finn’s confusion melted away. “I know what you mean. When he first got back, he was talking about taking a trip to Columbus to go to the Rock and Roll Museum. I haven’t even really talked to him since Quinn, and I was still mad at him for getting himself sent to juvie in the first place, so I asked him what made him think we were still friends. He looked like I punched him. I still don’t understand what he was thinking.”

“Exactly!” Kurt exclaim

ed. “That first day, he came up to me and said ‘Looking gorgeous, babe.’ All I could think was ‘Oh Gaga, not the food dumpster’, and ran away. He hasn’t said a single word to me since. He hasn’t said a word to anyone. I’m really worried, to be honest.”

Finn sat down on a desk in the front row. “What do you think is wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Kurt replied, his enthusiasm fizzling out. “I’ve been watching him for the last couple of days, and you’re kinda right about the Secret Santa thing. You know he drew his own name and wasn’t going to say anything?”

“-the hell?”

“Yeah,” Kurt sat his tote bag down and pulled the small slip of paper that said ‘Puck’ from a front pocket. “He threw it away as he was leaving the classroom. That’s what I was getting out of the trash on Thursday. I drew Artie, so I got Brittany to distract Mr. Peterson in the front office so I could get Puck’s locker combo and trade him. Only, when I saw his locker, there was something about it. It was so bare.”

“Yeah,” Finn agreed. “Puck kinda likes things like that. Simple and stuff. His room’s the same way. Or it was the last time I saw it.”

Kurt nodded. “Yeah, but this was more than that. There was no personality what so ever in the locker. And I started to connect that with the whole ‘not all there’ thing, and got even more worried. So, now I’m kinda, expanding the game, I guess."

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he’s Jewish, and doesn’t do Christmas, so I’ve been doing this ‘8 days of Hanukkah’ campaign instead. Putting a present in his locker every day. The last day of Hanukkah is on Friday, so it’ll wrap up then. But he hasn’t been happy at all so far, with any of the gifts that I can see.”

Kurt sagged a bit at this, disappointed that his efforts were for nothing, and Finn slung a long arm across his shoulders.

“Puck’s a bit messed up on his best days, bro. Don’t give up on him yet.”

\--

Lunch time found Puck in the choir room. He’d seen all the gleeks at a back table in the cafeteria with their food, and had used the opportunity to hide somewhere warm and quiet. He had the blue and white present from his locker; the day had leeched his bad mood away, and he wanted to know what was inside now.

A T-shirt. A grey t-shirt with a picture of a cobra versus a badger. Above each animal was a thought bubble; the cobra’s said ‘I’m poisonous’ and above the badger said ‘Don’t care’. Under the picture said “Attitude is everything.” There was a note with the shirt, familiar spiky handwriting spelling out ‘Honey badgers: the ultimate badass’ and once more signed with a smiley face.

Despite being unhappy about being the recipient of the odd attention earlier that morning, the present made him smile. He’d seen the video of the honey badger attacking everything in sight, and eating the snake. It really was the original badass.

There was no one in the classroom, and the door was closed, so Puck shrugged off his jacket and t-shirt, and put on the honey badger one. Since the only thing he knew about his Secret Santa was that they were in glee with him, he had no way of saying thanks (which he knew what totally the point of Secret Santa being _secret_ , thankyouverymuch). So he figured the best way to tell them he really did appreciate the gesture was to show that he liked the gifts, especially this one.

\--

That afternoon’s glee practice, once Mr. Schue was done extolling the virtues of 80s rock again, was Mercedes and Sam singing some sort of duet, and Rachel talking about Regional or Sectionals or something. He honestly couldn’t remember which was which most days, he just sang and danced where they told him to.

At the beginning though, Finn saw Puck’s shirt, blinked, then snorted with a small smile before sitting down. Kurt caught sight of it and giggled, before hiding his smile behind his hand and Sam had flat out grinned before raising his fist for Puck to bump with a “Sweet, dude.”

For the rest of glee practice, it was just like old times, and Puck was able to get into the music the way he used to.


	7. Day 5

Wow. This had to be the grossest thing Puck had ever seen. He was pretty sure he was head over heels in love with his Secret Santa for this gift alone.

Puck had actually come to school eager to see if his Secret Santa had left him anything. His afternoon wasn’t going to be pleasant, so he wanted something to start the day off right. This definitely did the trick.

In his hands, he held a red stress ball encased in sort of black mesh. The tag had said “Zombie Virus Infectious Disease Stress Ball.” When he squeezed it, the stress ball turned green and squished out between the holes in the mesh, making a cluster of slime green pustules. Puck grinned as he squeezed and released the stress ball, making the green bubbles appear and disappear.

“Oh my Gaga,” Kurt’s voice cut into his musing, and he looked up to see the other boy staring down at the stress ball like someone would stare at roadkill. “What is that? It looks disgusting.”

“Chill, princess,” Puck replied, unable to stop smiling. “It’s a stress ball. Wanna try?” He held it out to Kurt.

Kurt gave it a small sneer, and held his hands to his chest as if he was afraid to touch it. “Not a chance.”

Puck looked down at the ball again. “Your loss.”

Kurt sniffed and walked off down the hall. Puck ignored his departure. Kurt actually initiating civil conversation with him? Check. Awesome Secret Santa gift? Check. Despite his doctor’s appointment this afternoon, today was going to be a great day. He turned back to the second present in his locker, putting the stress ball in his jacket pocket.

The second gift was a book. “The Ultimate Guide to America’s Best Colleges 2012.” Puck’s good mood melted away. He had known he wouldn’t be able to get into college before the accident; the only way he was getting in now was if there was some sort of affirmative action for brain-damaged retards.

Nothing his Secret Santa had given him before had been spiteful, and he couldn’t figure out why this one was. He flipped through the books, seeing articles on Yale and MIT and UCLA. That was when he realized that the book had been mutilated. There was a large chunk of pages missing from the middle.

Looking at the page numbers, then at the table of contents, Puck had to smile again. His Secret Santa had removed the Ohio section from the book. Maybe his Secret Santa had all the hope that Puck was sure he lost. If that was the case, they could keep a hold of it, Puck might need it later.

\--

Dr. Mann’s office was simple in a way that Puck found very calming. He’d been seeing her weekly since the accident, and even though the last thing he wanted was to be bearing his feelings or talking about how hard it was to talk, he knew that talking to the neuropsychologist was helping him get better.

He had started seeing her just after the accident, when it became apparent that though he was able to think up full and complex sentences, his utterances were limited to a single word. 3 MRIs and a Cat-scan later, he was in a shrink’s office hearing words like “aphasia” and “speech therapy”. She’d been pretty excited that he was in glee, and had gone for a program called “melodic intonation therapy”.

By the time he’d restarted school, 2 months after the accident, he’d been able to speak short sentences. Now he was able to hold conversations rapidly, but occasionally missed simple words. Dr. Mann called it ‘Telegraphic Speech’ and had every expectation that he would be able to overcome it completely.

“A Secret Santa, huh?” Dr. Mann asked as she handed him back the odd stress ball. He relaxed into the cushy couch across from her chair.

“Yeah. They’ve been putting stuff in locker and on my porch.” He squeezed the ball and smiled at the green mass that protruded.

“Have there been any clues as to who it is? Is it one of your friends from music club?” She annotated something on her notepad and smiled up at him.

“I’ve been thinking about that. It has to be someone from glee, but none of them give a shit about me, or seem like it, anyway.”

“Language, Noah.” she chided. “So I take it your interpersonal relationships aren’t doing as well as we’d hoped.”

“No.” He wanted to say more, wanted to rail about the unfairness of it all, but the words just weren’t there. He squeezed the stress ball, not in amusement, but to give a physical response to his anxiety. “I found another safe-spot at school. There’s a storage room off the auditorium that hasn’t been used in a while. I went there last week when I needed space to breath and Principal Figgins locked the roof door.”

“We’ve talked about this, Noah.” she frowned at him and set her pen down. “It’s not healthy to hide alone when you feel anxious. Have you talked to Mr. Figgins, or your guidance counselor?”

Puck scoffed. “Yeah, right. They don’t care about me. They wouldn’t give damn about me finding a safe-spot to recover. They don’t even know something’s wrong in the first place.”

“They won’t know unless you tell them.”

He shook his head. “So much crap goes on at that school. They don’t stop people from shoving kids into lockers, or teachers from picking on students. They aren’t going to care that the school delinquent is feeling sad one day.”

“All right.” Dr. Mann replied, and once more scrawled something across the notebook. “I really wish your mother was more supportive. I’d talk to her about getting you into a special program, or even a different school.”

“No!” That was one of the worst things Puck ever heard, and for once, he was glad his mom was a spazz. “It’s not that bad, really. I mean, right now, I’m crazy school delinquent who went to juvie 2 months and came back weird. If I transferred or started special ed program, it would be worse.”

She sighed. “Very well. Without your mother’s input, I’ll defer to your own. As it is, I was hoping we could cut back on your dosage of duloxetine, but I’m not comfortable with doing that just yet. We’ll see how next week goes, alright?”

Puck resisted the urge to sigh himself. Yay. More drugs. His mom was gonna be ecstatic.


	8. Day 6

The appointments with Dr. Mann always led to dreams from the coma-world. He never told her about them, of course. He was stupid, not brain dead. If he told her that he had lived another life in a dream world for a month and a half, he was pretty sure she’d have him committed.

He told her about the minor panic attacks, and the anxiety and the loneliness. She knew that someone, probably Jewfro, had started a rumor about him being in juvie instead of the hospital, and that it had gone so viral that not just the students, but the faculty actually believed it. She knew that he was so concerned with his image that he let the rumor persist because it was more badass then being asleep in a hospital bed for a month.

The dreams from last night weren’t about Kurt and Finn, like normal, but about his mom. Dream-Renee was wasn’t anything like Reality-Renee. His dream version of him mom wasn’t exactly nurturing and attentive, but she cared about both of her kids and did what she had to do to get by. She cared that he went to temple and passed school, and encouraged him in her own way to do what he wanted with his life. Reality-Renee was a drunk who despised her son for looking like his father.

He wasn’t going to lie. He was hoping that there would be another present in his locker this morning. After the dream, his morning had been pretty crappy. His mother was going on and on about how expensive him needing a refill on his Cymbalta was, and how selling his truck wasn’t enough to pay for her new car (he still couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t just taken his truck, but he figured it was a spite thing), and how he needed to stop seeing the head doctor. He’d escaped as quickly as he could, and had apparently beaten his Secret Santa to school.

Not wanting to deal with anyone, Puck grabbed his school books from his locker, made sure that he had his stress ball in his pocket, and headed off to finish his homework in the library before class.

\--

Kurt wanted to curse at Finn as he hurried into school. Puck’s gift was in a black bag to make sure the other boy didn’t see it, but he was pretty sure Puck was already at school. Everyone was already at school. Finn had lost his math homework, and had torn his room apart to find it. Finally, it had been located in the living room of all places, and they had hurried off to school, 30 minutes late.

Kurt stashed the package in his locker, and rushed off to Health Class.

Half way through class, Kurt was glad that Finn’s crisis hadn’t made him any later then they were. If he had missed this particular class, he wouldn’t be connecting the dots he was right now.

They were doing a unit on mental health, and spent the first part of the period talking about a short story called ‘The Yellow Wall-Paper’. The story was creepy, and Kurt was pretty sure that Puck wasn’t going insane, but a girl in the front row was asking about the vocabulary on the worksheet, and the teacher was explaining what they meant. One phrase stuck in his mind on loop.

Clinical Depression.

\--

Kurt ambushed Finn as the rest of the gleeks headed out to lunch from the Choir room. He’d arrived late to their usual ‘lets do study hall in the choir room so no one messes with us’ 4th period, having spent the first half of the period in the library, with it’s limited amount of books and unlimited Internet access. He pulled a pile of print outs from his bag after he closed the classroom door.

“What do you know about depression?” he asked his stepbrother without preamble.

Finn sat back down in one of the chairs. “Isn’t that the thing where you’re super sad all the time?”

Kurt nodded and took a seat on one of the chair next to him. This way, he could see the door and if anyone came in. “Something like that. Its consistent low mood, like always being sad, plus low self esteem, loss of interest in once enjoyable activities and either loss of or increased sleeping and eating.”

“Okay, now I know what it is. Why?”

Kurt frowned at him. “Think, Finn! Who do you know, here in your immediate group of friends that has suddenly stopped being happy, doesn’t do what they used to like doing, like sports or singing, and looks like they haven’t been sleeping lately?”

It took Finn a few moments, and his tendency to emote with his entire face meant that Kurt saw the moment he saw what Kurt did. “Puck,” Finn said softly. “Puck is all of those things.”

Kurt nodded.

Puck was all of those things. Puck saw the worst in everyone and everything. Puck was pulling away from them and didn’t talk to them anymore. Puck who wasn’t Puck anymore.

“So what do we do about it?” Finn asked.

Kurt shrugged. “Aside from showing him that we’re here for him? I don’t know. The websites only talked about medications and therapies, not what someone does if one of their friends has depression.”

\--

Puck couldn’t figure people out. He’d seen Finn spying on him during lunch, but for the life of him couldn't see why. So he’d ditched the other boy, slipping around the far side of the gym and heading to his locker. He debated the merits of going to math, but the nurse’s office was calling. The school nurse was the only person in the school who knew the truth about October and November. When he complained of headaches from class, headaches from trying to deal with the stress of school, she let him take his pills and try to sleep them off. He found that he didn’t need to fake them anymore; after the accident, the the headaches were very real.

He finally decided to skip math, and go take a nap, but upon opening his locker to stash his math book, he found his Secret Santa had struck again. He smiled at the small blue and white box, even if it made him look dopey.

The headache pounding at his temples lessened as he ignored the crush of students around him. Puck pulled the box from his locker, and didn’t hesitate in opening it.

The custom guitar strap in the box made his chest ache. It was black with silver embroidery, and Puck pulled it out to read it. One side had a series of Hebrew letters, a message of hope. The other side had the same words, in English this time.

 _‘It gets better’._

Turning, Puck headed for the choir room. He was still going to skip math, but instead of sleeping, he would spend the time working on his music portfolio. Twice now his Secret Santa had shown him that they still hoped for him, still had faith in him. Puck might not get into college like the other gleeks, but damned if he was going to be stuck in Lima forever. Despite his mother’s wishes, if music was the way out, he was going to take it.


	9. Day 7

Puck ended up skipping the entire day on Thursday. He hadn’t intended to, not at first. But he’d realized about half way there that he’d left his stress ball at home, and as amusing as the toy had been, he’d found that it actually helped keep the panic attacks at bay when he had it in his pocket to squeeze. He’d turned around to go get it, but once in his room and the house empty, he’d laid down on his bed and stayed there. He’d fallen back asleep and didn’t wake up until it was after noon.

\--

The realization that Puck was suffering from depression sat with Kurt for the rest of Wednesday night, worrying him. He’d been quiet at dinner, and afterwords had gone back to his room, telling his family he had a headache. He’d wrapped Puck’s last presents, using all the rest of the special paper.

The next day, Puck wasn’t at school at all, and after glee, Kurt went and got the present out of Puck’s locker. He wanted to make sure that Puck got it today, and not tomorrow. So once more, Kurt found himself sitting outside the Puckerman house, stalking the other boy.

In the end, he decided a variation of ‘ding-dong-dash’ was in order, and moved his Nav to a cross street where it wouldn’t be seen, walking back with the present in hand. After setting it on the mat, and ringing the bell, Kurt found himself hiding in a bush in front of a house across the street.

Even from his distant vantage point, Kurt could tell that Puck looked like shit. The websites had all said that depression wasn’t something people just snapped out of, that it took a combination of support, and help, and therapy and sometimes medication to overcome. But Kurt was terrified that Puck would slip away, get worse, do something drastic before Kurt could tell him that there was hope, that it would be okay.

Tomorrow. Kurt would tell Puck that he was his Secret Santa, super-secret project be damned, after the glee party tomorrow.

After Puck went back inside with the box, Kurt waited a few more minutes in the bush, just in case Puck was looking out a window. Watching the curtains carefully, he was satisfied that he wasn’t and Kurt slipped out of the bush. As he headed down the street, Mrs. Puckerman’s indigo Volkswagen Beetle passed by, and pulled up to park in front of the house.

Poor Puck. If getting a ride to school meant being seen in that particular car with his mother, Kurt didn’t blame him for walking every morning. Perhaps after he told Puck he was his Secret Santa, Puck wouldn’t turn down Kurt giving him a ride to school in the morning.

\--

“Mrs. Puckerman doesn’t drive a bug, dude,” Finn said, looking at Kurt upside down where he was laying across Kurt’s bed, listening as Kurt told him about the afternoon delivery. Since their discovery the day before, Finn had been interested in what Kurt was doing, and how Puck was taking it. “She drives a Volvo, I think. And Puck has an old Ford pickup.”

“I’m telling you, she was in a purple Beetle. Purple even. I’ve seen it twice.” Kurt answered distractedly as he updated his Facebook profile with lyrics to a Queen song he’d had stuck in his head all afternoon.

“Didn’t Mr. Schue say that the reason Puck went to juvie in the first place was that he drove his mom’s car into a store and tried to steal an ATM?”

Kurt twisted around to look at Finn in confusion. “Is that was he really said? Seriously? I wasn’t paying attention, like, at all.”

Finn nodded, then winced at the resulting head-rush. “Yeah. Maybe that’s why she has a new car. Because he totalled the old one.”

Kurt turned back to his laptop. “He drove into a store? You’d think that something like that would have made the news. He went to juvie when, early October?”

“Something like that.”

Kurt opened up a search engine. Something about, well, everything wasn’t adding up. Trying to steal an ATM wasn’t something you went to juvie for just a few months for. Kurt was pretty sure it was right up on the list with stealing from banks or cash registers, all of which were felonies. And juvenile or not, Puck wouldn’t have only gone to juvie for 2 months on a felony.

His searched turned up the answers he was looking for. Smashing a car into a store in Ohio and trying to steal an ATM was classified as burglary, and that would have earned Puck either time until he was 18 if he was tried as a juvenile, or 1-5 years if he was tried as an adult. Even with parole, he wouldn’t be out after only 2 months.

He reset his search engine, this time looking for the incident in question. Nothing. Nothing on google, nothing on bing, nothing on yahoo, nothing on dogpile.

Scrambling for answers, Kurt opened his link to Jacob ben Israel’s blog. The troll was bound to have something, rumor or true, about it. A few clicks had him back in the early October section, and he found the post he was looking for.

“It was a freaking rumor!”

Finn startled where he’d been dozing on Kurt’s bed, rolling off the bed and landing on the floor. “Wha-?”

Kurt gestured angrily at his computer, then opened up a second tab, going back to his search engine. This time he searched for any accident and or crime report from early October. Finn came over and he switched back to Jewfro’s blog.

“Ben Israel’s blog says here that Puck was out of school for unconfirmed reasons, and then lists a whole bunch of things it could have been. The whole ATM/juvie thing is the last one on the list, and he goes on about how it was the most likely, not that that’s what really happened!”

Finn peered at the computer. “Well, if that wasn’t what happened, why didn’t Puck say anything?”

Kurt switched back to the other tab and went back to scanning the old headlines. He finally found what he was looking for tucked on the bottom of page from late September.

 _‘Local teen in critical condition after I-80 traffic collision’._

He clicked on the link, and found himself looking at a picture of a mangled blue Volvo, surrounded by emergency response. The person injured in the crash wasn’t identified in the article, but Finn’s soft _‘No!’_ told him what he needed to know. There were no other links to click beyond this single, small blurb with it’s chilling photo.

“He didn’t tell us because in his twisted brain it’s probably seemed more badass to have gone to juvie, not spent 2 months in a hospital. Especially when none of your so-called ‘friends’ even realize what really happened. You said his mom drove a Volvo, right?”

Finn’s hand came from over Kurt’s shoulder, and touched the screen. Normally Kurt would yell at Finn about fingerprints, but just this once, he figured he could excuse the other boy.

“Yeah, that’s her car. Man, Kurt, he could have died and no of us would have even know. What the hell?”

\--

Puck stared down at the gift in his hands. He’s sat at the window and watched outside to see if he could see anyone on the street, any of the gleeks that could be his Secret Santa. He’d finally stopped when he saw his mom’s car pull onto the street, and turned back to the present.

He was now the proud owner of one of the most unique iPod speakers he’d ever seen. Seriously. It was an old ammo box, all army green and yellow writing, with two round speakers in the front. There was a port on one side to plug his iPod cord into, and a handle on top. Epically badass.

Needless to say, Puck loved it.

For the last 7 days, someone had been paying attention to him, even if it was in secret. They knew when he wasn’t going to school, and respected his religion. Someone was watching him, making sure he was okay in their own way. Puck didn’t care who it was in the end, though he had hopes, no matter how far fetched. He just wished there was a way he could tell them thank you, that this odd campaign was the best thing that had happened to him since the accident.


	10. Day 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Christmas where I'm at now, so...Merry Christmas!

Puck slipped into the choir room after making sure there was no one around. The wheel spinners he’d bought as his present for Artie was a bit big and he didn’t want anyone to see him putting it down. He was not the first person to have this idea, as running across the top of the piano were 5 gifts already. Puck put down Artie’s gift, then looked at the others.

Mercedes…Quinn…Sam…Finn…and one in really familiar blue and white wrapping paper. His name was written on the tag under the bow, but Puck already knew it was his. It looked like a book, a large one, and he was tempted to pick it up. All the presents up to this point had been pretty awesome so far, however, so he refrained. Taking one last look back at the gift, he left the room.

\--

The gleeks chattered excitedly around Puck as he sat in his chair in the back. Rachel was all but sitting in Finn’s lap, and from the look on his face, this wasn’t a bad thing. Kurt was looking at something on his phone, not an uncommon occurrence, but he was keeping up his side of a conversation with Mercedes and Tina.

Along the top of the piano were 12 presents in an array of colors. Puck’s wasn’t the only one in blue, but it was the only one in that particular wrapping paper. There were two other blue ones, one sparkly red one, on blindingly silver one, and an assortment of cartoony Christmas ones. Mr. Schuester stood over on the end by candy-cane decorated one with Mercedes’ name on it.

“Alright! Let’s get this party started! It’s too cruel to make you wait for present until after food and cake, so…PRESENTS FIRST!” He picked up the first one. “Mercedes! Quinn! Sam!”

With each name called, he handed the gifts over to the respective students, until everyone had a present in hand. Puck ran his hand over the blue and white stripes of his, not particularly eager to open it. He could see Kurt opening his present, some sort of bath salts thing, which was weird because Kurt was gay but he was still a guy and Puck was pretty sure he didn’t do BATHS. He looked over in time to watch Artie open his, and the amused look on his face as he twisted to compare the size of the flame colored spinners to the size of his wheels. Finn had gotten a Chicago Bears hoodie, Santana: a generic toiletries kit. Then he quit trying to distract himself, and carefully opened the gift.

He was right that it was a book. It was a large book of blank staff lines, the kind for writing music on. He flipped through it. The back half was alternating lines of treble clef, bass clef, blank clef and lyrics lines, the front half of the book had 12 lines of staff with no clef. Tucked inside the cover was a note in familiar handwriting.

‘I can’t give you your last Hanukkah gift here, or it will be really really obvious I went above the spending limit. ^_^’

He hunched over a bit, curling around the book he held tightly to him. Every gift so far had been perfectly him, thoughtfully chosen. Every day this week had pushed back the dark thoughts and unhappiness just that much more. He didn’t know how he was going to repay his gift-giver; hell, he didn’t know if he could.

His fingers began to twitch in a familiar way was he struggled to sort his emotions. The book on his lap called to him, and with a small smile, he opened it up to the first page, scrawled out a treble clef, and began to write. Lost in the music in his head, he didn’t notice the others getting up to get cake, or singing non-denominational holiday songs, or even when they started to pack it up and leave. Finn clearing his throat caught his attention.

“You heading out, bro?” Finn asked. He had an odd look on his face, like he was seeing Puck for the first time in a long while, and was mentally cataloguing changes.

Puck looked around to see that he and Finn were the only ones left, and he’d written 5 pages of music.

“Uhh, yeah. In a sec. I just want finish this first.”

“Alright. You comin’ by this weekend? Mom’s gonna do her all-weekend-Christmas-cookie-baking thing…”

Puck looked at his friend, really looked at him, for the first time in weeks. It occurred to him that maybe Finn didn’t know how to deal with this new version of him, any more then Puck had wanted to understand the non-dream version of his friend. And it was unfair to keep comparing Finn to someone he came up with in a drug-induced haze.

“Yeah. I’ll swing by tomorrow,” Puck replied.

“Cool. Catch ya later then.” And then Finn was gone.

Puck stood up from his chair, stretched and began to pack up his bag. As he went to slide his new notebook into the back pocket, someone else came back into the room.

“Are you going to play it?”

Puck looked over to see Kurt by the piano. He wore a festive combination of red and green clothes that Puck couldn’t even begin to describe, except in one word: _nice._

“Play what?”

“Whatever you were writing back there so studiously you didn’t even notice when people were talking to you.”

Puck wanted to say no, that it was a thank you song for his Secret Hanukkah-Santa, but there was a challenge in the lift of Kurt’s eyebrow, and he found himself pulling the notebook back out. As he settled down at the piano, he felt Kurt settle on the bench next to him. He placed the music book on the top, then just began to play the song.

It had no title, and at the moment, Puck didn’t think it needed one. It flowed from his brain to his fingers to the piano and out, around the room like a breeze. It was _‘I’m sorry’_ and _‘Thank you’_ and _‘Help me’_ and _‘Please don’t stop’_ in intense notes that were out there for the world to hear. He heard Kurt give a small hiccuping gasp next to him, but kept playing, past what he’d written, until it was all out there, emotion in music form. He let the last few notes trail off, but didn’t get up from the piano.

After a second, Kurt sighed. “I know there was no juvie.”

Puck froze next to him, not sure what to say in return. The fact that someone might actually figure out the truth had never once occurred to him. Kurt continued.

“I mean, saying you were a juvie was the stupidest rumor ever, and I can’t believe people actually believed it. I mean, all it took was a little google-fu to know if you went to juvie for what they said you went for, you’d still be in.”

Part of Puck wanted to get up, wanted to not have this conversation with anyone who’s name didn’t even with Ph. D., like, ever. But another part of him, the part that had been hurting so bad these last weeks wanted the truth to be out there, for someone to share this with. So he remained quiet, and let Kurt get what was on his chest out.

“I looked up all these crazy things, over the last week. Stuff about depression, and mental illnesses and real illnesses. And stuff about this really wicked awful accident in September. And I just- I’m so afraid for you right now.”

Puck did stand up at that. “I’m not- Hummel, I-.” The words weren’t coming out, which made him more frustrated, which in turn made the words get even more caught up. He hummed the scale like Dr. Mann told him too, then turned to look at Kurt. “I don’t want your pity or you feeling sorry for me or any of that shit.”

“It’s not pity, Noah.”

Puck had to close his eyes at that. He’d just told himself that he was going to quit comparing the people in his life to their coma-dream counterparts, but when Kurt called him Noah, and not Puck...

“I mean, I was confused, and a bit horrified that you were going through this all by yourself. I know you don’t want pity. If you wanted pity, you would have corrected the rumors right off the bat and played up the injuries.”

Puck couldn’t help the small smirk. He totally would have done just that.

Kurt didn’t say anything else, just reached into the bag at his feet, and pulled out a flat present. A present wrapped in paper that Puck had gotten to be on pretty familiar terms with. Kurt looked up at him, and held out the gift for him to take. The eighth gift.

Kurt was his Secret Santa.

Kurt, who Puck thought didn’t care if he fell off the face of the planet, one less tormentor to deal with. Kurt had paid enough attention to care that Puck was drowning, and reached out. Who’d broken in to Puck’s locker (and house) like a total badass. Who bought Jewish presents and badass presents and presents that if Puck were a total chick, he’d cry about.

How did he turn that down? Why would he turn that down?

He reached out, and wrapped his hand around both the flat blue gift, and Kurt’s hand. Kurt gave him a small smile, and Puck realized that it was going to be okay. It was all going to be okay, and like his new guitar strap said, ‘It gets better’.

He took the present from Kurt and sat back down at the piano as he unwrapped it. It was just another holiday card, this one with with a caricature of a frog sledding on a lily pad. He opened it to read the pre-printed “Dashing through the snow! Happy Holidays!”, followed by Kurt’s message. “Happy Hanukkah, Noah. When you need me, I’m right here.” and signed by the signature smiley face.

Tucked inside the card were a pair of tickets, black, blue and white. Puck read what they were for and nearly dropped them. Trans-Siberian Orchestra, this upcoming Sunday, in Columbus. Kurt could have put this in his locker, kept it anonymous, told him the truth next week. The choice was Puck’s; though to be honest, he knew he would make the same choice even if he’d gotten them anonymously.

He thought about his dream, and then how reality was more painful, but so much more real. Then he smirked at Kurt. “Hey, Princess. Wanna go see a concert with me?”


	11. Epilogue

“Kurt!” Puck called, rifling through a box on the floor. There was a small, 2 foot plastic tree set up on the table beside him, waiting for decorations.

Kurt stepped off the stool he was using to reach on top of the refrigerator in their barely-there kitchen. With a smile, he came up beside Puck and slid an arm around his waist. “What’s up?”

Puck turned to kiss his boyfriend briefly. “Have you seen the Star of David tree-topper Rachel gave us?”

Kurt shook his head. “I thought we put it in the box with the ribbons, but it might be in the box with the wrapping paper. I’ll go check.”

Puck paused in digging through the box of wide blue velvet ribbons and silver tinsel and white and silver ornaments to watch his boyfriend walk away. Like that one country song said, ‘hate to see him go, but love to watch him leave.’

Through the apartment, classical holiday music played softly, there was the smell of the cookies Kurt had been baking. Carole had finally caved and sent them the recipe after months of begging, and Kurt was attempting to recreate her tradition of baking holiday cookies all day. Outside the window, snow fell softly in the New York night. New York being New York, it wouldn’t be all that beautiful in the morning, but for tonight...well, it just made the night so far all that more perfect.

Finding a thick manila envelope in the bottom of the box, Puck reached down and pulled it out. Then he took out the precious ornament it held.

On a place of prominence on the tree, sitting so innocently next to the silver menorah, Puck reached out and hung a pair of concert ticket stubs.


End file.
